BHS Students Qualify for National Speech/Debate TournamentJoe Rankin, Coach

The Bettendorf HS Speech and Debate Team has kept a record-setting pace for some time and we have managed to maintain that streak this year. We have a great group of students and I feel strongly that our continued success is from our dedication to getting students started as early as 6th grade and offering a wide variety of tournaments to attend throughout the school year. This year, we achieved the following through our participation at the East Iowa District tournament events:

5th year in a row where we’ve met/exceed our all-time school record for number of National qualifiers

5th year in a row where we’ve won the Debate Sweepstakes Award for East Iowa

5th year in a row where we’ve won the Overall Sweepstakes Award for East Iowa

5th year in a row where we’ve been a Top100 School, given to the top 10% of programs in the country

Beyond those repeat awards, we also won:

District Speech Sweepstakes Award for East Iowa

District Congress Sweepstakes Award for East Iowa

Leading Chapter Award (given to the school with the most degrees and participation over time – this signifies our program’s achievements from 2005-2016)

As you can imagine, very proud of our team and hard to believe the consistent level of success we have had the past few years. I know that it cannot last forever, but enjoying it while it lasts. This is also, to my knowledge, the first time any school in East Iowa has ever won every possible Sweepstakes Award. We had a clean sweep for all team honors from the NSDA this year – very pleased with our students’ performance.

The following students have qualified to attend the National Speech/Debate Tournament this year: